TIL Bologna was a city full of towers between the 12th and the 13th century

Clearly the work of wizards.

local superstition suggests that those who climb the Tower of Asinelli to the top will never finish their studies—bad luck for students, but good news for those who never tire of learning!
That does sound a lot like wizards
- I remember going up there with a friend when we were in study trip! oh wait...
Steeplejacks, but pretty much the same thing
- Only drunker.
You laugh, but people who believe the Tartarian Empire conspiracy theory point to this as one of the things lost after the "mud floods" lol.

Is this an AI image? Stop that.

I say that because some towers are leaning weirdly, and some windows are very diffused. It’s too low res to be to an “artistic renderin,” and it’s just looks messy (as an image). I’ve seen better renders of the towers of Bologna.

If it’s not AI, I’ll across out the top bir. I’m sorry I’m just super skeptical nowadays.

I'm sure it's an aerial image from that time
- Yea that's why it's low rez, the government pigeons were still in development
It appears to be a wooden model. The image appeared in this blog post from 2022. At the end of the blog post, there is the wooden model. https://thepastabbatical.substack.com/p/the-towers-of-bologna
Pretty sure it's just a close-up photo of this model reconstruction from 1917. This article contains a higher-res version of the photo where you can see that it's just the roughly painted model houses making it look somewhat AI-like.

Visited Bologna about 8 years ago and visited these towers. There was a ton of supports at the base to keep it from falling down and even then it was still leaning pretty hard.

I met some Italians that doesn't care about it and think it's a waste of money.

Did we have an Assassin's Creed about that?

There's San Gimignano left of you want to get a real life feel of how it was. The town lies on an important route and local families showed off by showing their massive dongs of towers.

The only Italian town of towers I recognize is "San Gimignano". Shoutout to AC2.

"The reasons for the construction of so many towers are not clear. One hypothesis is that the richest families used them for offensive/defensive purposes during the period of the investiture Controversy"

Nah, they just used them to show off. My tower is bigger than yours.
- Yeah, somebody of influence built one, and the rest of the city that could afford to just followed.
  The TikTok Stanley Cup craze of the 1100s.
My guess is it was about who has the longest one.
- That was actually one of the reasons I learned. The rich families wanted to show how rich they were so they built towers. Then other rich families built their own, preferably bigger, to show that they had ~~a bigger penis~~ more money.
  Are there any facts to back that up? I don't know. I heard it ~25 years ago and I don't remember the source. Though, I was in Bologna around that time so possibly from a tour or possibly from some drunk guy at a party.
- It’s not about height, it’s about girth. You need a properly wide base and taper in order to ~~please~~ house so many soldiers.
Another hypothesis is that the city was taken over by wizards.
- Hey, just because they use magic doesn't mean they're wizards. The biggest investiture tower, Urithiru, is actually associated with paladins
- I choose to believe this one.

Towers of Bologna

Somewhere in an alternative dimension where they're not fictional, Dagwood is very confused by his sudden boner and Blondie's dinner guests are scandalized.
- At least we know why they're married now.

So my Age of Empires build strategy was historically accurate

Obviously they were there to guard the cost-saving but insecurely designed trench leading to the small exhaust port.

Seems like it would be a nightmare to take them down. Demolition back then must have been pretty methodical, taking it apart from the top to bottom.

Much easier than that: just wait for a while and there won't be no tower anymore.
Either it falls down on its own or people come around to pick a few bricks and stones to build their own house.
Look around them. It would have to be like that today too. Too crowded.
- Image isn't real

The present past youtube channel has a video on this: https://youtu.be/ikg3-GQLg3g

Thanks for sharing.

"I'm heterosexual BTW"

Isn't a way to cool the air coming in ?

Nope. Nice idea but these were status symbols most of all, and had a bit of defensive use.
You're thinking of the structures that used underground water and winds to get evaporative cooling in Iran, the Windcatchers.